orn,
shattered wreck that the boy felt as if it were impossible to speak
aloud.

"No," said the captain decidedly; and in an instant the sight of the
torn timbers seemed less terrible, and the pictures Steve was calling up
of his uncle and crew lying somewhere about buried in the sand faded
away.

As the captain gave vent to that decisive utterance he climbed on board,
and stood up on the stones and sand which filled the angle between the
bulwarks and the sloping deck.

"What do you say she is, Johannes?" cried the captain to the sturdy
Norseman, who stood leaning on the shaft of his great spear.

"Whaler, sir, and been here for three or four years," replied the man.

"Yes, I thought it was not a last season's wreck. E--E," he said
thoughtfully; "where can she be from?"

"Dundee!" cried Steve quickly.

"Good. Of course, a Dundee whaler," said Captain Marsham. "That brings
to an end all idea of the _Ice Blink_ coming to grief here. But let's
see; we may find traces of the poor fellows who were wrecked;" and after
a look at the remains of the broken masts, the huge cavern-like hollow
ripped in the deck, where tons upon tons of sand were lying as it had
been tossed in during storms, he led the way aft to the cabin; but there
was little to see there. The windows had been battered in by the stones
and pieces of rock hurled at them by the waves; but two of the
dead-lights, which had been evidently closed during the storm in which
the vessel was wrecked, were still held in their places. As for the
cabin itself, the contents had been torn and beaten away through a huge
gap on one side of the rudder, which reached upward to the deck, and
nothing remained of locker or berth that could give any trace of the
crew. From here they went forward to the forecastle, the hatch of which
gaped widely open; and as they stood below it at the bottom of the
sloping deck, Steve felt a strange sensation of shrinking, and as if he
would prefer to leave any secrets which the cabin might hide in peace.
Captain Marsham felt, too, something of the kind, and he said a few
words in a low voice to the doctor.

"Yes," replied the latter, "perhaps so, poor fellows; but we ought to
see."

That was enough to suggest to Steve the possibility of the remains of
the crew being below, just as they had died of cold, perhaps of
starvation. The desire to leave the deck increased, but he tried to
brace himself together, and listened as the doctor